While the group was eating breakfast, Blau was squatting by the corpse of the evil beast Vur had swatted with his tail. She was cutting pieces of it off with a scalpel and storing other parts of it in glass vials. Stella flew over and hovered above Blau’s head. “What are you doing over here?”

“I’m examining the methods used to create this thing,” Blau said. “It’s not natural. Someone created it.”

Stella blinked. She flew down and touched the dead spider. Then, she flew up to the man’s face that seemed to be growing from its back. She lifted its eyelids and poked its eyeballs. Then, she raised her wet finger to her nose and took a sniff. “Hmm, smells pretty human.”

“You smell human eyeballs often?” Blau asked.

“No,” Stella said and rolled her eyes. “But I know what a human smells like.” She landed on top of the evil beast and prodded its carapace. “You said someone created this? Did they start from scratch?”

“I’m not sure if it’s from scratch,” Blau said. “However, you don’t find spiders with such thick carapaces growing to this size normally. I imagine the creator started with a portion of a small spider and somehow used it as a foundation to create this.”

Stella rubbed her chin and raised an eyebrow. “If we capture the creator, do you think he could make a body for a skeleton?”

Blau nodded. “It should be possible. I actually know a few classmates who specialize in body modification. It’s a lot easier to create a functioning body than you think.”

“Can they make a super handsome body?” Stella asked. “We have some friends, and they’re getting married, and I bet they’d really like a working flesh body.”

Blau blinked. “If you help me undo the curse Helden put on me, I’ll be more than happy to introduce you to my classmates.”

“You know you’re cursed, but you can’t undo it yourself?” Stella asked.

“I know the simplest way to undo it,” Blau said and glanced at Helden. He was busy resupplying Vur with food. “But even that is pretty tricky. Although Helden might not be able to match up to a dragon, he’s still obnoxiously strong. Given enough time, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could defeat a dragon in the future.”

Stella licked her lips. “Alright,” she said. “Hold still.”

Blau’s brow furrowed as Stella flew in front of her face. The fairy queen rubbed her own nose. Then, she rubbed it some more. Blau raised an eyebrow. “Are you having trouble with—”

Achoo!

Stella sneezed right into Blau’s open mouth. The fairy queen sniffled and wiped at her nose with her sleeve. “I told you to hold still,” she said. “Look at what happened because you didn’t.”

Blau stared at Stella with a blank expression, her mouth still hanging open. She closed it and calmly retrieved a napkin from her bag. She coughed into it and wiped her lips. “Isn’t that how some fairies curse people? I thought you were removing my curse.”

Stella giggled. “Fairies aren’t good at removing curses.”

Blau fell silent. “Then what did you do?”

“Well, your curse was one of infatuation,” Stella said. “So, I placed an even stronger curse on you. Now, whenever the person you’re infatuated with sees you, they’ll see a distorted image of you.”

“Distorted in a good way or a bad way?”

“He’ll think you’re hideous,” Stella said. “So, in a sense, it’s a good way, right?”

Blau fell silent again. After a moment of thinking, she blinked. “How long will this curse last?”

Stella shrugged. “A few months, a few years, who really knows how curses work anyway?”

A sigh escaped from Blau’s mouth. “I suppose that’s better than nothing.” She frowned. “Have you ever used this type of curse on someone before?”

Stella smiled so wide her teeth were showing. She brought her hand up in front of her face to cover her mouth as she chuckled. “No. Not in this lifetime, at least.”

***

Kondra sighed and looked around. The cave seemed so empty now. Despite the fact it was the same as how it was for the past few years, it was a little lonelier now that Grimmy, Leila, Ramon, and Gloria had left. Well, it wasn’t exactly the same. There was a shaking bear sitting in a corner of the cave.

Lulu poked her head out of her cave and glanced around. “How long is that bear staying here? You guys know it pooped, right? Is anyone going to clean that up?”

Kondra snorted. “You can clean it up,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like you have anything better to do.”

Lulu’s expression darkened, but she still trudged out of her cave. “Why are we taking care of this bear?”

“Gloria left it here because it’d die if she brought it with her to the southern continent,” Kondra said. “Take good care of it. If it’s not perfectly healthy when Gloria comes back, she’ll be terribly disappointed.”

“Do you think she can actually tell the difference between behemoth bears?” Lulu asked and purified the poop Alfonse left in the corner. Once it was gone, the white beam of light disappeared from Lulu’s mouth. “What if we just get rid of it, and when Gloria’s about to come back, we capture another one?”

“Oh, sure,” a sarcastic voice said from Leo’s cave. “Why don’t you go ahead and poison the bear again?”

Lulu’s tail slammed against the ground. “I didn’t poison the stupid bear!” She whirled around and stomped towards her cave. “I hate all of you. You always pin the blame on me!”

“Well, if it wasn’t you, then who was it?” Leo asked from inside his cave.

Lulu’s voice was muffled as it echoed through the cavern. “Think about who’s feeding the bear. A one-year-old child! Use your minds; Gloria obviously fed the bear something she shouldn’t have fed him. The next time someone uses me as a scapegoat for something, I’m leaving! Maybe I’ll copy Leila and find myself a cursed dragon too.”